Viperish Night sits with Jeziasi, resting his forehead against hers. It's been nearly a month since his former mentor brought her here. Not once has he seen the fiery Jeziasi he knows in those pale eyes of hers. Those eyes, still so very empty. Nothing he says or does has brought her out. He has taken her with them nearly every night, even the atrocities he and his allies have done fails to move her, she who once defended Nirn with all she is.
Viperish Night hisses and stands up, pacing. His war has moved on and so far no one has managed to stop him. The small towns are better guarded and they need to spend time scouting before they move in now so Viperish Night knows how many dead are needed to help them kill everyone. Everyone in the town and those who came to guard it. His army of the undead has grown to such numbers...it will be enough soon. Perhaps but a month or two more. Viperish Night stops pacing and faces Jeziasi. "Egg-mother, you have been with us a month. When my former mentor comes and his eyes fall on your unchanging state, I want to murder him even more. I want to hear him scream." Viperish Night hisses loudly. "I need him, though. I need him to find his true self, to find Swims-In-Silence so I can kill them both as horribly and painfully as possible. They will regret what they have done to both of us. I will make sure of it." Viperish Night falls silent and his claws touch the band. He still has so many questions, still, he has no idea what Swims-In-Silence gets out of this. Why he has done all of this.
Viperish Night's eyes move over Jeziasi. What will he do if she never awakens? Remains like this forever? He knows he should not care, but somehow he does. "Come back to me," Viperish Night whispers and kneels beside her, taking her face in his clawed hands and resting his forehead against hers. "The very few people who cared for me died. Never to come back to me, would you do that as well, Egg-mother?" A tear slides from Viperish Night's eye to fall on Jeziasi's cheek, carving a path down her face. Viperish Night stays that way for long moments before standing and stalking to the wall, slamming his fist against it. Why did he care? He should not, he did not need this, did not need her. All he needed was to cast this world into silence. He stalks out of Jeziasi's room.


Jeziasi rests in her tree eyes closed. All she wants is to just stay here. Beyond memories, beyond truth. She cannot bear the truth, cannot bear what she has done. So she cannot enter the Hunting Grounds, she will just stay here in this forest in-between forever. Suddenly there is wetness on her face and her eyes open as she reaches for her cheek and her hand comes back wet. She sniffs it, salty. But she is not crying, so what is this? Arawn's words come back to her, she had dismissed what he said. It did not matter, the world beyond this forest did not matter. But now? Who would cry for her, she was...not worth it. Jeziasi suddenly snarls and leaps from the tree. She will hunt, it will calm her.

Jeziasi hunts in the forest looking for a rabbit or perhaps a deer. The forest is calling her to hunt, and so she moves silently through it. Suddenly the forest goes silent and a growl erupts from the undergrowth. Low, dangerous. Jeziasi freezes as a pair of golden eyes shimmer from the undergrowth and a wolf slinks out. The wolf has a pelt of inky blackness and a hungry look in his eyes. He sees Jeziasi as prey. As something to hunt, kill, and devour. Jeziasi steps back slowly the bow in her grip wavering. She has hunted only prey in this forest, not anything like this. Nothing with fangs and claws and the cunning eyes of a predator.
"Why hesitate?" Arawn says, standing on a branch in a nearby tree. Jezaisi looks up at him and then back at the wolf. "You have hunted the hunter before, Jeziasi." Arawn scolds. "Many, many times. You just..forgot."
Jeziasi's mind flashes back on all the battles and hunts she has been in. It was never prey she hunted, fought against. Always the cold baleful gaze of the hunters has been her targets. Jeziasi raises the bow, her hands now steady. She remembers what it felt like to be in battle. A whirlwind of blade and steel, or a savage wolf with claws and fangs. How it felt to be so very strong. She made the mistake of thinking she was stronger than any other, she knows this now. It's why she dismissed the danger. Slowly she snarls at the wolf and the wolf lunches at her. Jeziasi's arrow launches at the wolf, but it goes wild, and the wolf leaps and is upon her. Jeziasi's bow drops to the ground as the wolf's jaws are suddenly at her throat. Jeziasi can remember another's fangs at her neck, and she let them snap down upon her. She will not allow that again and so she thrusts her left arm up into the wolf's jaws as he snaps them shut. Pain courses through her but she is used to the pain. It's a sharp reminder of her life before this and it brings a trace of her old fire back to her. She kicks the wolf off of her and leaps onto its back. The wolf snarls and they tumble on the forest ground jaws snapping, claws tearing and the lines between them blur. Jeziasi and the wolf spring apart and Jeziasi is something else now. Brown and silver fur and golden eyes. A wolf yes, but not the werewolf. A more primal state, thoughts blur, and only the wolf's thoughts remain. The two wolfs circle each other than both lunge at each other in a flurry of growls and bites. The black wolf slams into Jeziasi and tears into her fur and flesh and soon he is standing over her jaws ready to snap on her neck. His wolf eyes tell her one thing and one thing only, submit.
Time seems to slow and Jeziasi's thoughts shift from wolf to mer. This has happened before, though in a far different way. The glimmer of blue-grey eyes told her to submit, and Jeziasi did. She showed him her belly, became the beta to his alpha, and the why of it? She was lost and so very tired of being so utterly alone. She let her guard down, ignored her primal instincts, let the hunter catch and subdue her and she had thought it did not matter. She ignored the truth in Swims-In-Silence's eyes, the eyes she had stared into before. She should have recognized them, even though the form was so different. The icy darkness that sought her submission, and that of Nirn itself. The depths of evil she had been plunged into during the war, the cold that lingered long after. She had hunted him, once. Against all odds, she had made him prey and saved all of Nirn. She never expected him to hunt her in turn, never thought once that she would become so sure of her strength, that she would refuse the notion that anyone could hunt her, anyone could hurt her, anyone could dominate her. And so when he came to her in the guise of an Argonian that offered her a hunt, offered her the chance not to be alone, she ignored everything and went with him. Jeziasi's blood runs cold. She had done the unspeakable. If she had not been so lost in herself, so sure of herself, she might have known who he was, even clad in a mortal form. Instead...this was the result.
Jeziasi's wolf eyes narrow as she snarls at the black wolf. Not again, never again! She was the hunter, she would not be made to submit! Jeziasi surges upward the black wolf's fangs tear into the fur around her throat but she rips free and slams into him and he stumbles and Jeziasi's jaws find his throat and savages it. The black wolf falls at her feet and Jeziasi throws back her head and howls.

Back at her camp Jeziasi sits with Arawn as night closes in, staring into the fire. "How can you not think I am a fool?" she asks him. "I thought myself stronger than anyone else, that no one could hunt me."
Arawn stares in the fire long moments before he answers. "Perhaps it's a side-effect of walking the hunter's path. One can lose themselves and become just the wolf, just a savage beast who will hunt until the day they fall to a stronger hunter. Many werewolves fall to that, Jeziasi. They fall to the lure of the wild or the unending call of savagery. It is a fight to keep both parts of yourself, the wolf, and the mer as it is in your case." Arawn raises his eyes to Jeziasi. "You walked a far different path than most of my wolves." Arawn frowns slightly. "I may have to fight with the Void for your soul when it comes time for your mortal life to end."
Jeziasi stills and her eyes meet his. His golden eyes show depths he had not let her see before and as she stares into him she trembles slightly as she sees a shadow of his true self. "My Prince," she softly says.
"Arawn means hunter, Jeziasi," Hircine says. "You had other things on your mind, my wolf. You know what you must do, do you not?"
"I must hunt him," Jeziasi says. "But how can I end him? You know who and what he is as well as I do, now. I could not end him the first time I fought him, I cannot now."
"What he has done, Jeziasi is unprecedented. He placed part of himself in a mortal vessel, far deeper than mere possession. He became Swims-In-Silence when he did so. You can hunt Swims-In-Silence, you can kill Swims-In-Silence, and it will hurt him a great deal. Enough to make you the hunter and he the prey in your jaws. It's enough to do that. You have hunted him before, made him prey before. This time he's the same as you, mortal."
Jeziasi is silent for long moments. Her thoughts are in turmoil and she looks at her Prince, questions swirling in her eyes that she does not know how to put in words.
"You concern yourself with what side you should be on far too much," Hircine scolds. "It does not matter. All that matters is the hunt. When you wake focus on the hunt and who you want to hunt with." At Jeziasi's puzzled look Hircine just smiles.
"And my wolf?" Jeziasi softly asks.
Hircine rises and holds out his hand. "You know the answer to that, Jeziasi."
Jeziasi knows, and she also knows to take that hand means waking up. Facing what she has done and what has been done to her as well as Viperish Night. Part of her still wants to hide, wants to stay here forevermore. But a larger part knows she must wake. She needs to hunt. She needs to find Viperish Night and tell him this truth. Jeziasi takes Hircine's hand and lets him pull her up. The forest starts to slowly fade away.
"Hunt, my wolf," Hircine tells her and then rage flashes in his eyes and the forest seems to quake with his rage. "Hunt him and strike him down. Show him how wrong it was to hunt one of MY wolves." Hircine pauses for a moment, his eyes staring into hers. "Hunt him, prove you are worthy to be my Champion and that I am not wrong about you. Do not fail me twice or you will feel the Wild Hunt's jaws around your throat."
Jeziasi's eyes widen as the forest fades and darkness washes over everything as the waking world calls to her.


Awareness comes back in fits and starts. Jeziasi feels cool stone under her hands. Her hair covers her face, longer than it was before with braids interwoven in it. The feel of the heavy collar that the Dominion used to bind her wolf, thinking they needed to. And voices talking. A heavy male voice, she's heard it before but where? A female voice she's never heard..but somehow knows. And answering them a third, one she knows, one that causes her heart to miss a beat. Viperish Night. Her eyes dart to the right, he's by her side sitting on an ebony black throne, the chain to her collar in his clawed hands.
Shards of memories slowly come back to her, Even though her soul had been in that strange forest between life and death her mind somehow saw what had been going on, though the memories were fragmented, out of order. Being lead around on a chain by Tyranius. Riding on the skeleton dragon. Zirasha brushing her hair, sleeping beside her at night. Being brought to their slaughters, memories of screams, and unholy laughter. A chill runs down her neck and then the shards containing Viperish Night come back. Treating her as a pet, but when they were alone...begging her to wake. Pressing his forehead against hers his body softly shaking asking over and over why she let him go. That he was just a monster, just an abomination not worth saving. The final time he begged her to wake. Begged her not to leave him as others had. Jeziasi struggles to keep her emotions inside, she knows she is surrounded by the undead, by her enemies. But Viperish Night... she cannot see him as her enemy, though she should. Jeziasi stays still until Zirasha and Tyranius leave the room.
Once they leave Jeziasi raises her head and Viperish Night jerks and is kneeling in front of her in moments his eyes staring into hers. Viperish Night's claws touch her face gently. "Egg-mother you're awake? Tell me your awake," he softly says.
Jeziasi slowly blinks and nods. Viperish Night leans into her, his forehead pressed against hers, his breath hot on her face. Jeziasi tries to speak but struggles. How long has she been silent? How long has she been in the forest, so far away from the waking world, how did she get here? The last question comes to her. Of course...that is why he came for her, to bring her to Viperish Night.
Viperish Night reads her eyes. "My former mentor brought you here a month ago." His eyes narrow in rage. "What did he do to you?"
Jeziasi looks into his eyes. He deserves to know. He needs to know. "I know him, I know his master." she finally manages to say, her voice rusty from not speaking for so long. Jeziasi reaches up to touch Viperish Night's face, his scales cool against her palm.
Viperish Night cups her hand in his, feels the trembling coursing through her. He can see in her eyes how shattered she is and how she is struggling to piece it all back together in some semblance of what it used to be. He is all too familiar with having to do this. "Who is he?" Viperish Night asks. "I will kill my former mentor for you, for so many reasons. As horribly and painfully as I can manage."
The depths of hate and rage in those eyes. The things that must have been done to him. "Hunt together," Jeziasi insists.
Viperish Night stills. Hunt...together? Yes, both his former mentor and his Egg-father hurt both of them so very much, manipulated everything. They could hunt them together, torture and kill them together. Viperish Night nods. "Yes." He says.
"He came to the past with you, did he not? In that strange glowing form?" Jeziasi finally asks. When he nods she continues. "It's why he never was in his true form, that part makes sense. He could not risk it with his past self there. He could change that now...but his master will not let him."
"He wants me to free him," Viperish Night says. "If it means I can kill him...but who would I be freeing? What kind of monster is he?"
Jeziasi's hand falls to the ground and her fingernails scour the stone floor. She slowly brings her eyes to Viperish Night. "Someone I fought against, along with his master years ago during the wars. I never thought...I never thought a lot of things." Viperish Night touches her hand, still trembling and she continues slowly. "Viperish Night, your mentor is Mannimarco."
Viperish Night's eyes widen in shock. He knows who that is, he has heard the stories, the nightmares of what that necromancer had done, what he had almost done. "That's...how is that possible?" he hisses. "Why..." he trails off.
"Impossible, yet not," Jeziasi says and her head falls, hair covering her face as she struggles with the next thing she knows, the thing that shattered her. "Swims-In-Silence..." she trails off and starts shaking.
Viperish Night grasps her arms as he holds her steady. "We will hunt him too, Egg-mother. I want to rend him to pieces! It is the only reason I tolerate my former mentor helping me. Because it is the only way I know of to get to him." He pauses a moment. "Tell me what you must, Egg-mother."
Jeziasi forces her head up to Viperish Night's. "Yes, we must. We must hunt him, and we must kill him." The look in her eyes causes Viperish Night to drop his hands from her arms. Determination, rage and hate, and such fear. His eyes gaze into hers as she reaches up to touch his face again. "You are mine, no matter who your father is. Remember this."
Viperish Night's eyes widen in shock. Hers, she was...accepting him? Despite what he was, despite everything? And what did she mean by who? Swims-In-Silence was his Egg-father, was he not? Yes, she had just said that. His eyes show his confusion. "What do you mean by who?"
Jeziasi looks into his eyes, trying to gather enough strength. "Viperish Night, your Egg-Father is a Daedric Prince."
Viperish Night goes utterly still his eyes filling with shock. He starts to ask her more but the expression on her face, she's still struggling to be here, to be awake. She's in such agony, knowing such truth and fighting not to hide from it again. And in truth, he knows does he not? Viperish Night was not involved in the wars but he knew of Mannimarco, and he knows what master he served. Still served as Jeziasi had said. "How is all this possible?" Viperish Night asks instead.
Jeziasi just shakes her head looking utterly lost. "There is so much I do not know. All I know is I should have known who Swims-In-Silence was. He has the same eyes as the monster I hunted during the wars. Somehow my mind just pushed it away, how could this Argonian be anything but an Argonian? I thought there was no way I could be hunted in such a way. In any way." Jeziasi lowers her eyes.
"Can we even kill him?" Viperish Night asks.
Jeziasi raises her eyes again, Viperish Night sees the hunter in them. "We can hunt him and make him prey. I have done it before. Swims-In-Silence is a mortal form, despite what he truly is. Hircine said it will be enough to hurt him a great deal."
"The ways we will hunt him, torture him, kill him, Egg-mother!" Viperish Night hisses, a dark look entering his eyes.
Jeziasi looks into his eyes. The same thing she has seen before is within them. Darkness and madness, anything not a monster is nearly gone. He has shown her there was more, but it was dwarfed by the darkness, he was utterly lost in it. But still...he still was hers, and she would never hunt him. What did that mean? Would he try to change his river? She wants to ask him, but Viperish Night jerks suddenly as footsteps approach the throne room. Viperish Night moves back to his throne and takes the chain in his claws, glancing at her once more before his eyes fall on Zirasha and Tyranius as they walk into the room.
The two move to the table and Jeziasi's eyes follow them. As they notice the change both pause and Tyranius move toward her. "Wolfys awake," he notes as he crouches by her and roughly grabs her face. Jeziasi slowly growls at him.
Zirasha shoves Tyranius aside. "Damn brute," she snarls at him as she turns her gaze on Jeziasi before standing.
Tyranius crosses his arms across his chest. "What now, Viperish Night? Your pet has her mind back," he asks. "She is the Vestige, the fact she let you go is notwithstanding." Tyranius's glare falls on Jeziasi. "Wolfy could spring for our throats."
Jeziasi stills. Amongst enemies...the ones who have killed so many. She remembers fragments of the countless slaughters all over Tamriel, they showed no mercy, left not a soul alive. Jeziasi knows what she should do. Stop them, kill them, escape to find help. Any of these. But... Jeziasi's eyes move to Viperish Night. Will he continue this? "You know now," Jeziasi says softly, her eyes asking the unasked question. Will he continue down this path?
Viperish Night's eyes slide to hers. Yes, he knows the truth now. It explains a lot, though there are still unanswered questions. "Yes," Viperish Night says. "My former mentor is Mannimarco, and somehow my Egg-father is a Daedric Prince. They created me, helped drive me into the dark for their twisted purposes." Viperish Night's eyes leave Jeziasi as he sits back. "But I saw this world before I was driven into the depths of the river. It is full of cruelty, full of monsters. The living are mad, Egg-mother. I will not stop, I will kill them all." His eyes move back to Jeziasi's, the shock and utter despair his words have caused her. "Will you once more plead for me to change my river?" His angry hiss follows his words. So many have told him what river to follow, what to be. This was not what he had once wanted, but now... he no longer cared for another river. He wanted to drown them all and not even his Egg-mother could change his mind. No one could.
Jeziasi hangs her head down. There was no happy ending...just a choice. One that is unfathomable..but any other will finish breaking her for she cannot kill her son. Jeziasi clenches her fists and then as Hircine's words come back to her she knows what she will do. She will choose the unfathomable path. "Your river is my river." Jeziasi whispers. "I will help you."
The silence in the room is deafening. Viperish Night stiffens in shock, Tyranius stares at her unbelieving, and Zirasha's mouth drops open. "Damn it, Viperish Night," Tyranius says. "She's lying, she's the damn Vestige. There is no way she would even think of doing this."
"Keep me leashed, keep me bond, keep me at your feet like a dog. I will help you." Jeziasi says again.
Zirasha moves to Jeziasi and kneels in front of her. "Look at me," Zirasha commands. Jeziasi raises her head to look at Zirasha. "Will you hurt Viperish Night? Will you betray him or any of us, will you try to stop us?" Zirasha demands as her eyes seem to glow.
Jeziasi feels compelled to answer. She knows she could fight Zirasha's vampiric gaze but she will not. "No," Jeziasi whispers. "I will serve Viperish Night until the end."
Zirasha blinks breaking the gaze and rises a baffled expression on her face. "She's telling the truth. There is no trace of deception within those eyes of hers." She stands and walks over to the table.
"Damn," Tyranius says again and moves to kneel in front of Jeziasi. "You know what helping Viperish Night implies, don't you? We don't just watch him as he raises the undead to turn against a town. We get our hands dirty. We help him kill everyone. No prisoners, no survivors, everyone."
Jeziasi's eyes narrow. "You took me to see that. Shards of memory, enough to know pieces of what all of you have done. The atrocities, the countless bodies you've dropped." Jeziasi pauses, a look of loss crossing her face before her eyes harden. "If that is what Viperish Night wants me to do, that is what I will do. My hands are not free of innocent blood."
Viperish Night snarls and tugs on the chain. "No one is innocent, and no one deserves mercy." he snarls at her, he then pauses and tilts his head. "It is what I want. You will hunt with us, Egg-mother." A smile crosses his face. "You will stay on your leash until it's time to hunt, however."
Jeziasi feels Tyranius and Zirasha's eyes on her. They know her enough to know she would never let anyone keep her on a leash, that she should in rights fight this. But... her eyes move to Viperish Night's. "If that is what you want," Jeziasi softly says. "I will do as you ask, so we may hunt together."
The smile crossing Viperish Night's face widens and he throws his head back and laughs. "If the fools had any chance at all to stop us, they've lost it now. We have their Vestige." Viperish Night flicks his claws at Tyranius. "Pick a target in Cyrodiil, its time we expand to Imperial territory as well, tonight we hunt. All four of us." Viperish Night folds his claws together.